Phil SumblerWell, that one was a tough watch wasn’t it? After the battling performance that earned us three points on Saturday against Stoke, Tuesday night saw us give up without a fight at Stoke, slipping to a 3-0 defeat that could easily have been more given the complete domination of the home side.
Conceding 59% possession, 22 shots at goal, three goals, a red card and being out passed by Stoke sums up the miserable level of the performance that has to be the low point of the Russell Martin era to date.
There will be much soul searching required in SA1 over the next few days with more than one player needing to take a hard look at their part in the performance on a night where the only positive has to be that the score was kept to three.
As has become the norm after recent games though, we reflect back the day after – win, lose or draw – and wonder what things we can take from the game, so take a deep breath and these are five things we took from that proverbial “Cold Tuesday night in Stoke”
1. Square pegs and round holes. We are getting to the habit of claiming tactical genius when we win games but the longer the season has gone on the more obvious it becomes that square pegs and round holes cause our problems. Korey Smith is not an attacking midfielder and Hannes Wolf is not a wing back are two good examples. It may work in some games but I fear that it will fail more than it succeeds.
2. What was our transfer window about? I’ll say it now in that I do not get the signing of Finley Burns. When we bought him in I assumed it was to give him game time but even with a suspension to Ryan Manning and an injury to Kyle Naughton he didn’t see any game time. If he was to play then the move makes sense but to not have him playing just seems like a move for the sake of it.
3. Tiredness should not be a factor? I get that we are playing Saturday/Tuesday at the moment due to the postponements of games around Christmas time but this is an issue for pretty much every other side in the division. We may not necessarily have the strength in depth of every team in this division but our fitness appears to have been a concern all season and doesn’t seem to be changing.
4. No more excuses, actions speak louder than words. Little doubt over the next few days we will hear the same trodden out lines from key members of the squad. “let ourselves down”, “Need to bounce back on Sunday” and “The fans deserved better” will be lines we hear but we do hear them more often recently than we would like. Are we learning from the mistakes that we are making? You would like to think so but it doesn’t always appear that way.
5. Is our formation just wrong? Is it time to move towards a more traditional back four to accommodate the players we have? We have a good defence in terms of clean sheets but if we had Christie/Manning as full backs with two central defenders it would allow for a better midfield formation in front. Fulton, Grimes, Smith last night just suggested minimal creativity within a key area of the pitch. A flat back four allows Downes to move into midfield (presumably next to Grimes) and frees up two from Wolf/Ntcham/Paterson a little to support a front two of largely Piroe and Obafemi. Would it make a difference? It couldn’t be any worse than last night!
So that is our five takeaways and thoughts from last night – a tough game to watch but itrs Bristol City next – the performance simply has to be significantly better!
I’ve thought for a long time that the team formation is the problem. Playing wing backs high upfield leaves too many gaps which the better teams exploit with ease. Our passing game from the back, at all times, is boring, predictable and gives opposition coaches no problems in developing their game plans as they know exactly how we play. In the final third we are always trying to pass the ball in to the net even from corners and free kicks. Why don’t we, when we get the chance, put the ball in to the danger area ie the penalty box where any thing can happen such as handball, a foul, an own goal, a clanger by the goal etc. I am no longer enjoying watching the Swans because of their style of play and, sadly, will not renew my season ticket . Instead I will decide on which future games to attend dependent on whether they play “good to watch” football. I doubt whether this will happen with the current coach.
I would argue that this is the right formation for a possession-based team such as Martin’s. It’s all about natural diagonals and passing options and a 3-5-2 or 5-3-2 (pick one) has both in abundance (compare it to a 4-4-2 and see the difference). Working both ends of the pitch, the wing-backs allow for additional central midfielders (Paterson and Ntcham) rather than wingers and these can roam free in-between the lines, making them much more difficult to mark, as the wing-backs function as wingers high up the pitch. Obviously that only works if the team manage to stay in possession and are able to continuously progress the ball into the opposition’s final third. But if the team manages to do that and drag the opposition around for long spells of the game, chances should come from the roaming midfielders as these attempt to create overloads in areas where the team outnumbers the opposition, because the opposition has been dragged out of position (Paterson against Cardiff is a prime example).
If anything, I would argue that last night’s game makes a pretty strong argument why Martin’s team are playing the way they are, as the team couldn’t grab hold of the game at any point and suffered a lot for it. When they don’t drag the opposition around, they’re losing out on physicality. When they don’t stretch the opposition enough, they’re getting squeezed in central midfield. I think anyone who says that this team would win more games playing a different way would have a hard time making that argument after last night (Bristol City away was similar, I think, and even though Swansea did win that game, it was much against the run of play).
One positive I would take away from last night is that Ben Cabango can hold his side of the three on his own. What a performance from him again. This makes it so much easier to play with wing-backs.
And I know Martin is getting a lot of criticism for saying that his side is tired, but Stoke rotated and rested/subbed off a lot of key players playing 11vs10 for the last fifteen minutes during an afternoon kick-off on Saturday, while we all know what Swansea went through in an evening kick-off and then Swansea had to travel. Of course it has an impact. And I agree that the squad is thin, but Martin had to thin out to get his targets.
I’m assuming that Martin wants to use Burns against less daunting opposition than Blackburn and Stoke for Burns’ sake and, in turn, his own sake. But I understand the argument. The way I see it, and from how Martin explained it, the Burns transfer has more to do with aiding Brandon Cooper’s development than with strengthening Swansea in the short run. Think of that what you will, but I do see the point in that.
I agree with Graham.
The system is wrong playing with a back 3 leaves gaps and unless we have two top lung busting wing backs who will deliver for 90 mins then the defense is vunerable and the attack is weak. You only need to look at the attempts at goal to see how porus we are, teams are having 20 plus shots at goal a game, that is not good defense at all. Then you look at our attack in some games like stoke we had 1 shot at goal. we should play 4-4-2 or 4-5-1
What games are you watching? Before Stoke and Blackburn, Swansea had more shots on goal than the opponent in each of their last nine games. I can’t remember another team that had more than 20 shots against Swansea. Fulham didn’t and Bournemouth didn’t.
And it takes time to transition from one system/style to another. I completely agree that Swansea aren’t there yet, but I don’t think it has to do with the system/style. The pattern seems to be that they can’t carry out the gameplan for a whole 90 minutes. That’s been the pattern for every team I can remember watching that was going through a period of transition. I’m betting on them to get there, but it might take some time.
Yeh I think the fans need to stick behind Russell Martin and give him a fair crack. He started the season without a pre season and without a summer transfer window. Yes, he could have adopted a style/formation that the current players were comfortable with but that’s only delaying the transition. Best to get started this season, see who in the squad can cope with the new style and improve the squad in the summer.
Im happy to have low expectations this season to build something more suitable for long term success. It has been said that Swansea can’t compete with the top clubs in this division in finances so we can’t go and buy the best players to win the league, instead we have to do it differently by creating a possession/passing style that is dominant. The added benefit to this is we develop players comfortable on the ball and technically very good, these are far more attractive to premier league clubs and will command a higher price when inevitably we have to sell a player to balance the books or make funds available for further transfer targets.
It’s going to take time. Ok if midway through next season we are languishing in the bottom half I might begin to feel uneasy, but until then Russell and his team have my full support. I really think we’ll see vast improvements next season.
It’s going to take time. Ok if midway through next season we are languishing in the bottom half I might begin to feel uneasy
What a load of rubbish!.
We are near the bottom now and if we are near the bottom at the halfway stage next
season he should long be out of a job.
Now is not the time to fire him but if theres no improvement by end of season fire him
What is it with everyone saying give him a chance he plays the wrong players
in the wrong positions!
Lifetime jack if u want instant success go support Man City or another team with billions. People expecting us to be pushing for promotion in a single season are deluded. I’m not saying Martin gets every call right, but playing players out of position is partly due to not having the players he needs and partly finding out if they can play there. He played Ryan Manning out of position and he’s been excellent. I’m fed up of this hire and fire a manager attitude if they don’t have success straight away, we’ll never get anywhere with that, in fact we’ll end up worse off with the constant disruption year after year building absolutely nothing!